Science Politics - Science topic

Rudolf Virchow was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder of social medicine, and to his colleagues, the "Pope of medicine". He wrote in 1848 “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.” What is your opinion?

You may follow the link:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Virchow

2. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1907455?query=TOC

I know that the issue is hard. Let us try to be very careful not to offend other people, try not to mention the names as much as it will be possible; certainly avoid people who are around on RG; and let us discuss just the methods. So let us discuss the problem apart from the RG and just in principle. Let us try to examine when political propaganda intervenes in science and what are their methods.

Therefore the essential point is the discrepancy between facts and the interpretation of the facts in science under influence of politics, or :

This may concern opposing some scientific concept by using political action or inverse: the opposing some political orientation by using fallacious scientific methods. Using science is very effective to persuade the masses and can be easily dissimulated. The important aspect of the propaganda method is to imply the conclusions and to avoid establishing links with the discussed facts.

As far as I know, we had on RG at least 2 such threads: during the last elections in the US (trying to discredit Donald Trump), and one recent and still running - on plagiarism (trying to damage certain Serbian politicians). There are certainly some others of which I am not aware.

The common feature of such attempts is to focus the discussion on some personality and to avoid clarification of the facts and insist on some more general aspects, structural or contextual aspects, persuasions or general principle without establishing the links with the discussed facts. Number of logical fallacies are used and none of them is specific for those discussions.

Or, the essential point is that since politics is often blind for the facts, the question is how deep politics reaches into science?

Social sciences 

Or political sciences 

Suggest you check references in White Clover Ed. MJ Baker and WM Williams  CAB International 1987 particularly Chapter Population dynamics and competiton

and

Pastures, their ecology and management. ed. RHM Langer

Oxford University Press 1990 particularly Chapter 3 Pasture as an ecosystem. w. Harris

I have collected a few definitions of economics from well-known giants in the field. I wondered if you would like to add comment(s) or any omission you might regard as very important.

Also in light of significant changes in the field, can you state you opinion as which ones you thing are now irrelevant  to modern economies.

 

If you wish to further opined, can you state:

Common features

First Principles, Essence-substance-substratum, objective vs. subjective comment.

 Definitions

The Physiocrats: Economics is the natural government of society.

Adam Smith: "Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. it proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign."(Smith, Adam Wealth of Nation: Modern Library, p. 397}

Thomas Malthus: "A QUESTION seems naturally to arise here whether the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour be the proper definition of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of the land, according to the French economists, may not be a more accurate definition...the only point in which I should differ from Dr Adam smith is where he seems to consider every increase of the revenue of stock of a society as an increase of the funds for the maintenance of labor, and consequently as tending always to ameliorate the condition of the poor."

[Malthus, "An Essay on the Principle of Population" (ed) Anthony Flew (Pelican Classics, 1970, p. 192)]

Jean Baptiste Says: (Commenting on Smith's definition) "I prefer to say that the aim of political economy is to show the way in which wealth is produced, distributed and consumed." {in the German translation of Smith's WN, Paris, Guillamumin, 1881, vol. II, pp.1-2, note 2.}

J. S. Mill: " Political Economy...shows mankind accumulating wealth, and employing that wealth in the production of other wealth; sanctioning by mutual agreement the institution of property; establishing laws to prevent individuals from encoaching upon the property of others by force or fraud; adopting various contrivances for increasing the productiveness of their labour; settling the division of the produce by agreement, under the influence of competition,  (competition itself being governed by certain laws, which laws are therefore the ultimate regulators of the division of the produce;) and employing certain expedients (as money, credit, &c.) to facilitate the distribution." {J. S.  Mill, A System of Logic, Logman, New Impression 1970, p. 588}

W. Stanley Jevons:  "The science of political economy rests upon a few notions of an apparently simple character. Utility, wealth, value, commodity, labour, land, capital, are the elements of the subject; and whoever has a thorough comprehension of their nature must possess or be soon able to acquire a knowledge of the whole science. " {W. S. Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy (ed) R. D. Collison Black, Penguin Books,  1970, p. 77}

Karl Marx:  "Political economy has analyzed, however incompletely, value and its magnitude, and has discovered what lies beneath these forms. But it has never once asked the question why labor is represented by the value of its product and labor-time by the magnitude of that value." {Capital I}

Alfred Marshall: "Economics is a study of men as they live and move and think in the ordinary business of life. But it concerns itself chiefly with those motives which affect, most powerfully and most steadily, man's conduct in the business part of his life." [ Marshall, "Principals of Economics"

( 8th ed.; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1920) , p. 14.]

Misses defined economics in term of human action: “Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is ego’s meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment; it is a person’s conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life.” (Misses 1963 p. 11)

Lionel Robbins: "Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." [Robbins, "An Essay on the Nature and significance of Economics Science." (London: Macmillan, 1937)]

Joan Robinson: " Economic concepts such as wealth, output, income and cost are no easier to define precisely than wind. Nevertheless these concepts are useful, and economic problems can be discussed. " (Accumulation of Capital, p. ix)

Paul Samuelson: "Economics is the study of how people and society end up choosing, with or without the use of money, to employ scarce productive resources that could have alternative uses, to produce various commodities and distribute them for consumption, now or in the future, among various persons and groups in society. It analyzes the costs and benefits of improving patterns of resource allocation."  {Economics, McGrawHill Book Company, 1980,  p. 2.}

Kenneth Galbraith: He doesn't seem to have any problem with Marshall's definition if he could add: " . . . a reference to organization for economic tasks by corporations by trade unions and by government. Also of how and when and to what extent organization serves their own purpose as opposed to those of the people at large. And of how the public purpose can be made to prevail." {Galbraith & Nicole, Almost Everyone's Guide To Economics" ( N.Y.: A Bantam Book, 1980) p. 1.) }

There is a renewed debate on how “real” the energy and resource crisis is in the world. Some say it is based on faulty science and politics and the reality looks different. It seems that we have enough renewable energy which helps use to handle our limited resources of raw materials when using intelligent concepts of reuse after lifetime of our products.

I believe that some major flaws in the peer-review process are involved with anonymity. I believe our current review process opens up areas for abuse in the part of the reviewers in two main ways:

A) By knowing who the authors of a study are, the reviewers can be biased. especially if the authors are in direct competition with the reviewer's lab. Also, knowing the identity of the authors can make it harder for first time grad-students to get their work published as these people may be unfairly targeted as inexperienced based not on the merits of their science (and the models they propose) but based on their scientific status.

B) By remaining anonymous these reviewers can be far more critical to one's work without necessarily being constructive as they do not have to fear criticism from the wider scientific community for being, perhaps, too one-sided/biased.

I believe that a fair review process would be one that fosters diplomacy at all levels. This can be accomplished by either allowing both the authors of a study and the reviewers to be anonymous so that a review can focus solely on the science, or by eliminating the anonymity status from the reviewers so that the authors and the scientific community know who is reviewing what, which would prevent unfair and biased reviews.

Recently I learnt about 'Post-Publication Peer-Review.' I can not figure out what this means on the article already published. Does this discard the so called 'peer-review' process that takes place before the article is accepted for publication? In my opinion, I think this should not be. I think instead of looking for another way of review, the peer-review should be improved especially on the case of regarding names of authors and where they come from to give better comments on their work rather than the content of the work. Your opinion is needed and highly welcome.

The growing number of separately discussions that derive from tumor registries is the product of a better understanding of their data. I looking hopefully for a detailed consideration of their utility keeping into account the rules making the scientific community work. So provoking and stimulating discussions to understand the success of some, and also the failure and mediocrity of others would be much appreciated.